Foreign journalists based in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have for years refused to report on the financial corruption and human rights violations that are rife under the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas regimes. Palestinian "suffering" and the "evil" of the Israeli "occupation" are the only admissible topics.

Another Ramallah-based colleague shared that a few years ago he received a request from a cub correspondent to help arrange an interview with Yasser Arafat. Except at that point, Arafat had been dead for several years. Fresh out of journalism school and unknowledgeable about the Middle East, the journalist was apparently considered by his editors a fine candidate for covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Western reporters would do well to remember that journalism in this region is not about being pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian. Rather, it is about being "pro" the truth, even when the truth runs straight up against what they would prefer to believe.

Two Western journalists recently asked to be accompanied to the Gaza Strip to interview Jewish settlers living there.

No, this is not the opening line of a joke. These journalists were in Israel at the end of 2015, and they were deadly serious.

Imagine their embarrassment when it was pointed out to them that Israel had completely pulled out of the Gaza Strip ten years ago.

You have to have some pity for them. These foreign colleagues were rookies who aimed to make an impression by traveling to a "dangerous" place such as the Gaza Strip to report on the "settlers" living there. Their request, however, did not take anyone, even my local colleagues, by surprise.

These "parachute journalists," as they are occasionally called, are catapulted into the region without being briefed on the basic facts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Sadly, correspondents such as these are more the rule than the exception. A particular clueless British reporter springs to mind:

When Israel assassinated Hamas's founder and spiritual leader, Ahmed Yassin, in 2004, a British newspaper dispatched its crime reporter to Jerusalem to cover the event. To this reporter, the region, as well as Hamas, were virgin territory. His editors had sent him to the Middle East, he said, because no one else was willing to go.

Well, our hero reported on the assassination of Ahmed Yassin from the bar of the American Colony Hotel. His byline claimed that he was in the Gaza Strip and had interviewed relatives of the slain leader of Hamas.

Sometimes one feels as if one is some sort of a lightning rod for these tales. Another Ramallah-based colleague shared that a few years ago he received a request from a cub correspondent to help arrange an interview with Yasser Arafat. Except at that point, Arafat had been dead for several years. Fresh out of journalism school and unknowledgeable about the Middle East, the journalist was apparently considered by his editors a fine candidate for covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In the three decades of covering this beat, journalists of this type have become quite familiar to me. They board a plane, read an article or two in the Times and feel ready to be experts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Some of them have even assured me that before 1948 there was a Palestinian state here with East Jerusalem as its capital. Like the ill-informed young colleagues who wished to interview the nonexistent Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip of 2015, they were somewhat taken aback to learn that prior to 1967, the West Bank had been under the control of Jordan, while the Gaza Strip had been ruled by Egypt.

Is there some difference between an Arab citizen of Israel and a Palestinian from the West Bank or Gaza Strip? My foreign colleagues may well not be able to say. Does the Hamas charter really state that the Islamist movement seeks to replace Israel with an Islamic empire? If so, my international co-workers may not be able to tell you.

One memorable journalist, several years ago, asked to visit the "destroyed" city of Jenin, where "thousands of Palestinians had been massacred by Israel in 2002." She was referring to the IDF operation in the Jenin refugee camp where nearly 60 Palestinians, many of them gunmen, and 23 IDF soldiers were killed in a battle.

Pity aside, this degree of incomprehension -- and professional laziness -- is difficult to imagine in the Internet age.

But when it comes to covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ignorance apparently is bliss. Misconceptions about what goes on here plague the international media. The binary good guy/bad guy designation tops the list. Someone has to be the good guy (the Palestinians are assigned that job) and someone has to be the bad guy (the Israelis get that one). And everything gets refracted through that prism.

Yet the problem is deeper still. Many Western journalists covering the Middle East do not feel the need to conceal their hatred for Israel and for Jews. But when it comes to the Palestinians, these journalists see no evil. Foreign journalists based in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have for years refused to report on the financial corruption and human rights violations that are rife under the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas regimes. They possibly fear being considered "Zionist agents" or "propagandists" for Israel.

Finally, there are the local journalists hired by Western reporters and media outlets to help them cover the conflict. These journalists may refuse to cooperate on any story that is deemed "anti-Palestinian." Palestinian "suffering" and the "evil" of the Israeli "occupation" are the only admissible topics. Western journalists, for their part, are keen not to anger their Palestinian colleagues: they do not wish to be denied access to Palestinian sources.

Thus, the international media's indifference in the face of the current wave of stabbings and car-rammings against Israelis should come as no surprise. One would be hard-pressed to find a Western journalist or a media organization referring to Palestinian assailants as "terrorists." In fact, international headlines often show more sympathy toward Palestinian attackers who are killed in the line of aggression than toward the Israelis who were attacked in the first place.

Of course, the above tales hardly apply to all foreign journalists. Some correspondents from the US, Canada, Australia and Europe are both very knowledgeable and very fair. Unfortunately, however, these represent but a small group among mainstream media in the West.

Western reporters, especially those who are "parachuted" into the Middle East, would do well to remember that journalism in this region is not about being pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian. Rather, it is about being "pro" the truth, even when the truth runs straight up against what they would prefer to believe.

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24 Reader Comments

Robert Braun • Jan 26, 2016 at 11:19

Knowing that the Palestinians will echo these efforts in their own bizarre fashion, it still might be well to leave informational brochures in the lobby of the American Colony Hotel and offer brief courses there concerning the history of the conflict.

My experience with Israeli tour guides is they can succinctly capture and make interesting the essence of events and it might be a way for them to drum up business.

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empty pockets • Jan 25, 2016 at 13:39

Increasingly we see so-called journalists engaging in partisan commentary and calling it "reporting" and calling themselves journalists. They are interested only in supposed "facts" that support their own preconceived notions. Many don't even attempt to objectively report anything choosing instead to try to recruit others to their "side".

As a friend says, "Don't confuse them with the facts. Their minds are made up." That is no part of any description of journalism.

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Empress Trudy • Jan 25, 2016 at 11:22

It's a lie pushed by the Jew haters and Israel haters. They know it's a lie, they know it's false but they push it and push it and push it because they know eventually they will rewrite history and facts.

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A. Renee Pearman • Jan 24, 2016 at 17:39

I am not of Israeli descent, I don't even know anyone in Israel but I am so sorry everyday at the rising anti Jewish speeches and proposals...........at least when I'm not outraged and venting. I know, I know, I know it is a spiritually fueled bias and hate so I know the source but still the human mental, verbal and sometimes physical lashing out at this most unique and beautiful and gifted people pains my heart no end. Sometimes I have to skip reading what's on line for a day or two to recover my equilibrium. A friend & I were discussing going to Israel ourselves but the truth is, if we truly love the people, we'll spend that money on someone trying to make aliyah. I thank God everyday for His hand of protection. I know, as an American that my God may have to pronounce judgement on my nation if/when it abandons Israel so I try in my own small way to make the truth known and challenge anything I hear contrary to Israel's best interest. Stay strong , my Brethren in spirit.

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sid • Jan 23, 2016 at 13:11

This problem exists all over the world. The journalists who know very little, dispense what little they know to an audience that knows even less.

Mark Twain commented, over 100 years ago, "If you don't read the daily newspapers you are uninformed. If you do read the newspapers you are misinformed!"

Read John J Swinton's speech 1880!

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jacob t chachkes,m.d. • Jan 22, 2016 at 21:12

You ignore the owners and publishers that control the choice of editors and thus the selectivity and biases in choice of reporters and reports. The game is 'rigged' by the owners of the media. Truth is at best approached as an asymptote. Can you identify any of the above that seeks the truth?

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Guillermo Del Solar • Jan 22, 2016 at 16:14

It is really surreal what goes on with the reporting about the Israeli-Arab problem. Like the author says, everyone immediately blames Israel.
Instead of being concerned about who is initiating the attacks, the press is only concerned on how to portray Israel as using "excessive force".Nevermind the Palestinian terrorists are the attackers...it is as if that is their right, that they are doing what is expected of them and the Israelis are "repressing them" and being violent by defending themselves.

In this surreal world of the Western press, Israelis need to let themselves be stabbed an shot at, lest they anger and hurt their poor Palestinian attackers.

OH and of course the fact that Israel is the only Jewish nation in the world has nothing to do with it, right? Suuuurre.

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JK • Jan 21, 2016 at 23:56

Never let the truth get in the way of the message. That seems to be what the Arabs and their supporters keep demanding. Since they were never a distinct people, culture, language, or government; I refuse to use the fashionable label they have adopted after 1967.

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Emyh Salg • Jan 21, 2016 at 20:22

Do what the Russians and others do -- withdraw these journalists' visas. Don't allow them to report fabrications / total ignorance.

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Ron Thompson • Jan 21, 2016 at 17:37

The biggest failure in all the reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is the failure to realize it is not just a conflict between Palestinians and Israel, but between all of Islam and the existence of Israel.

If the conflict were only or primarily about a State for the Palestinians, it would in all probability have been settled decades ago. But if the Palestinians primarily see themselves as devout Muslims who are religiously obligated by their religion and their God, Allah, to oppose the very existence of Israel and any free, self-governing Jews in the Middle East, then of course there can never be any peace as long as Israel exists.

This is the chief failure of the media in reporting on the conflict, a failure which unfortunately not only involves the many incompetent and ignorant 'parachute journalists', but also quite a few in the United States and even in Israel who see themselves as unreservedly pro-Israel.

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Donald Krausz • Jan 21, 2016 at 17:17

So what else is new? I belong to the Media Team Israel, a unique group that monitors the press for anti-Semitism and anti-Israel propaganda.Pro Palestinians would quote the Qu'ran and distort or amend the Holy Scripture when it suited them. When our members disproved the veracity of such utterances and believed their task completed, before long the same writer would proclaim the same lies. It was then that we realised that these honourable people were adhering to Joseph Goebbels' dictum that lies repeated often enough would eventually be believed. It was the cause that mattered, not the truth. The answer? We followed the same advice and repeated our established truth as often as necessary. The object was not to convince the propagandist, but his readership.

Ruyard Kipling: "If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken, twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools..."

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Carmi Turchick • Jan 21, 2016 at 16:57

The University of Arizona journalism professor Jacqueline Sharkey would tell how she was hired by the Washington Post to cover Central America in the 1980's when there was so much conflict there. She spoke the language and had travelled there extensively, as well as researching the history. She arrived her first day for work and was informed, by the way, you will also cover Israel and the Middle-East for us. She spoke neither Arabic nor Hebrew, had never been there, knew nothing at all about it. And this is a major newspaper.

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g. ben-nathan • Jan 21, 2016 at 16:18

The two journalists who wanted to go and see the settlers in Gaza should have been allowed to go and find out for themselves that there have been no Jews there since 2005.

Only one way to learn - the HARD way.

Perhaps they'll be less gullible next time!

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El Cid • Jan 21, 2016 at 15:21

Any journalist who begins with the assumption that Israel and the Jews are 'evil' may do his research with organizations in the West whose motive is to destroy Israel. After all, they see the organizations that promote "Israel Apartheid" as if that even meant something.

It is very easy to find on the internet today disinformation that would lead a latent antisemitic 'journalist' to the kinds of observations we see in quoted in this article.

We have seen Jesus portrayed as a "aboriginal Palestinian". We have seen the Temple Mount denied, as well as any historical connection between the land and the Jewish People.

Also, there is widespread ignorance. On Jeopardy last night the final question was 'what religion has a billion followers and whose name means tradition?' Of course the answer was 'Sunni' Islam. One the guests wrote "Judaism". There are many people who think we Jews are some huge force.

To paraphrase Goebbels, the bigger the lie, the easier to sell it.

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John MacArthur • Jan 21, 2016 at 15:00

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.... the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State." Goebbels' famous remark has relevance. Heaping lies upon lies increases their legitimacy until the truth is buried under a mountain of media-fuelled, misguided public opinion.

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Ora • Jan 21, 2016 at 12:56

Thank you once again, Khaled Abu Toameh, for telling it as it is. I have posted a link to this article on another site. Hopefully more people will read it. The problem is that the people who need to know these things probably won't read it.

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George • Jan 21, 2016 at 12:38

A buddy of mine, TV cameraman, told me that before Iraq was more important, that his team had to have a story daily and so his team had to very inventive...He told me that after I had told him that I had come to the conclusion that the news is a business.

I was younger then...

Thank you Khaled!

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Russell • Jan 21, 2016 at 08:48

Those who see no evil are the very ones who are overtaken by evil. The rookies who know nothing about the conflict report to a readership that knows nothing. The blind thus lead the blind. Israelis must be stronger in their reporting and publishing of the truth. This the only way to save the ignorant from the know nothings.

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Carl • Jan 21, 2016 at 08:41

This article is an example of why newspapers are dying and very few people watch the news on basic channels. Almost every report is commentary instead of factual news. I personally try to find unbiased reporting on the web. As for the reporters mentioned in this article; how did they get through college and graduate and still be that ignorant about world events? It absolutely amazes me as to the quality of graduates we are turning out these days.

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Judie • Jan 21, 2016 at 08:05

I believe it was in Jenin where a prominent US TV anchor talked about the huge area that had been destroyed. The visual, however, showed weeds growing out of the cracks in the ground. There hadn't been buildings there.

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Vladimir Weissman • Jan 21, 2016 at 08:03

Mr. Abu Toameh is one of my heroes. A serious and very capable journalist who is dedicated to finding and exposing the truth.
In this case I beg to differ - just a tiny bit.
I believe the reasons for this abject lack of good reporting is more than laziness and ignorance. It is concentrated effort to harm the Jewish State (and since there are no other Jewish States - to harm the Jewish people).
For reasons that wise psychologists understand and can explain much better than lil me, the bulk of the "intellectual" class hates Jews and Israel, except Jews and Israelis who themselves hate Jews and Israel. They present Israel as the evil incarnate - truth, facts, international law, analogue situations around the world - all be damned.This is very serious: 99% of the public in the "civilized world" (though not so civilized as it used to be...) get their info from these liars and racist hatemongers. And based on that info they go to the polls and elect politicians who share those views. While most politicians also base their views and actions on info that comes from the same or similar sources.
Israel has done a lousy work in informing their own people, and even worse in informing the wider world. They have the best and the brightest international law experts, historians, statisticians, and any kind of experts they need. It is about time they wake up and treat the information war like a war. They are formidable in the military field and intelligence gathering. They should try to strive to achieve the same excellence in the info war. Because it IS a war, and the outcome is crucial. G-d's speed!

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JEROME GELB Vladimir Weissman • Jan 22, 2016 at 01:16

Israel's quicksand remains the one fact that she has communicated to the world least well, the fact that Islam mandates the reclaiming of land deemed "Muslim", by whatever means and regardless of how long it takes. This critical Mohammadean directive held that any land on which Muslims prayed must be considered Muslim land and cannot be negotiated away.

Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Muslims the world over have felt utterly humiliated and mortified that the people most hated by their prophet, who constantly strived to dehumanise Jews as the "Spawn of Apes & Pigs", have defeated massed Arab Armies not once, not twice but 4 times, despite being grossly outnumbered.

The more that time passes, the more hopeless & enraged the Muslim world becomes, heading now for the unimaginable reality of gaining nuclear weapons, the only way that many Muslims believe that the Jews can be defeated. This line of reasoning is firmly based in knowledge of the Trilogy of Islamic Source Texts, the Qur'an, Haddiths and Sunnah. There are four main schools of Sunni Islamic Jurisprudence and four in the Shia sphere of influence. Although similar, argument, recrimination and conflict about the "correct" path to follow, is ever-present.

In fact, Muhammad ordered his followers not to behave in this manner but instead, wherever theological disputes arose, Muslims were tasked with determining what course of action to take by emulating the life and deeds of Muhammad himself, as related in the story of his life as contained in the Source Islamic Texts. As "the perfect man", Muhammad's actions in respect of the disputed issue (or similar) are considered "perfect" and emulation is therefore considered the ultimate display of piety and observance.

If Israel ever wants to overcome Islamic Jihad, a pillar of Islam's structure, by means other than violence and war, the theological fundamentals will need to be resolved. It may seem an impossible task but along with core Islamic supremacism and insistence on a One World Government under Shariah, imposed by the Sword, these two core beliefs must become the target for genuine Muslim reformers, who are currently organising themselves, gaining supporters and examining strategies with the goal of devising a plan that at least creates a receptive environment amongst Muslim leaders that might eventually allow a consensus on an agenda for Islamic reform to be reached.

The truth must be a vital component of any reform process. Israel's Jewish history & that of its Muslim population must be clearly and unequivocally documented by a fearless, truthful process involving expertise drawn from both sides that establishes the history of Jewish connection with the land of Israel, the origin of the term "Palestinian" and those deemed Palestinian and exposure of the historical revisions inculcated into Palestinian youth that breed much hatred. Palestinian leaders must be persuaded that Israel cannot be defeated and removed from the Middle East and that other options for an equitable settlement must be courageously considered. The Peace process is a relic of failed attempts to soothe bitter Muslim resentment that Islamic theology creates and foments.

Journalists have allowed the hateful politics of religion, national identity and manipulation by self-interests, to direct their reporting and the result is that poor journalsim has become the story rather than the verified, fact-checked news.

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Ruth • Jan 21, 2016 at 07:44

Yet another marvellous article by Mr. Abu Toameh!

I've often wondered just how many of these so-called journalists are on the payroll of the anti-Israel groups which have a lot of money to spread around.

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jeb Ruth • Jan 25, 2016 at 10:00

The first and worst American celebrity intellectual's position on the PLO and other manifestations of Palestinian angst is always blame Israel. His arguments are vapid and not worth the time necessary to read what is supposed to be the work of America's foremost celebrity intellectual. Why should we assume "journalists" are any better? Of course it is Chomsky proof that a man can be the leading scientist in his field and a total disaster in politics.
(Chomsky is one of the reasons it is easy for me to believe the scientists who advocate global warming or climate change and that only the USA has the ability to change the impending end of the world is a trailer load of horse poop. Fed by other political necessity, lie funding.)Ruth in another comment suggests that the journalists were bribed. I think she is on the right track but the bribe is access to tell a story. And the PA Hamas have manipulated this circumstance and with the fanatical ambition of a fakir like Chomsky have spun fairy tales where truth and fact is a basic requirement for a peace process into total hubris that is grist for more violence.